On Tuesday, July 28, 2016, ClipWrap from DivergentMedia.com will no longer be available for purchase. It is being end-of-lifed. It is a sad thing to see this go…it has been one of the most useful software tools in my kit for many many years, it not the most useful.

This application (Mac only, sorry Windows), in case you didn’t know, converted AVCHD .MTS camera masters into Quicktime files. You could either re-wrap it as MOV and still retain the H.264 codec, just in another wrapper…or convert it to various flavors of ProRes, DNxHD…DVCPRO HD, Apple Intermediate Codec, HDV, XDCAM or DV….editing codecs that many editing systems preferred, because H.264 can be difficult to work with.

Yes, many editing software applications had the ability to import AVCHD and convert it…but the issue with the AVCHD standard is that, well, there was no standard. Every single camera maker had their own variant of AVCHD. So when a new camera was released that shot AVCHD…it utilized a different AVCHD format than the editing software was used to and so it wouldn’t be able to import footage from that camera until the application was updated, more more likely, a new plugin was released by the camera makers to allow the editing software to see the footage.

What was great about ClipWrap is that Mike, the main guy over at Divergent Media, seemed to always be on top of the new formats, and would release updates to ClipWrap much faster than the camera makers would release plugins. Which was very helpful for those times your producer buys the latest camera, shoots a sizzle reel, and then needs you to edit it right away. If I had to rely on the camera makers and editing software companies…I’d be waiting a long time before things would work.

For example…quick story. A producer of mine bought the brand new Sony NX camera and shot a pilot with it. Of course, FCP 7 had issues bringing this in. If a clip was shorter than 5 min, all was good. Anything over, would take HOURS to import. Odd bug. And Avid? Couldn’t even see that camera. (Premiere Pro wasn’t on my radar at that time…sorry Adobe) So I tried to tackle it with ClipWrap, which had recently come out with an update. I tried it, and it worked! But there was a small glitch in the first 2 seconds of the clips…every clip. So I emailed Mike with the issue, he asked for a small sample file, I sent one his way, and within a day an update was released that made that glitch go away. How’s THAT for customer service!

So yeah…ClipWrap, that amazing app, is going away. BUT DON’T PANIC!! Divergent Media isn’t going away. No…they have a better option going forward. Everything that ClipWrap was and is, is available in EditReady…and has been for quite some time. And where ClipWrap only worked for AVCHD, EditReady works with a lot more. Not only AVCHD (MTS), but also M2T (HDV), MP4 and MXF Camera masters. It too will re-wrap, or convert to DNxHD and ProRes. AND…it will do it a lot faster than ClipWrap does. Up to three times faster in many cases. And you can make adjustments to the image like flipping, rotating, retiming and applying LUTs. Everything ClipWrap is, plus a whole lot more.

So stop recommending ClipWrap to people on help forums. Move on to the more improved EditReady. Exact same price, but tons more features. And yes, a trial is available.

Notice: Yes, I was approached by Mike to do a write up on this. But no, I’m not getting compensation in return. I didn’t want any. ClipWrap has saved by bacon more than once. And Mike has always been nice, personable, and quick to address any issues that came up.

Comments

Was advised to update from Clipwrap to Editready, but found I couldn’t use Editready for AVCHD .mts files because it wouldn’t run under my OS 8.5.5 installation. New software announcements tend to hide system requirements these days. Fortunately, I found that Adobe Media Manager did and does all the transcoding I need.

sk810

June 24th, 2016 at 2:26 PM

Media Converter does basically the same thing as Clipwrap as it will rewrap the h.26 in a QT container, but is free and open source. Has batch function also.http://media-converter.sourceforge.net/

Paul Hartel

June 29th, 2016 at 4:47 PM

I knew about this. Glad to see the write-up. I thought I was the only guy using ClipWrap. I didn’t realize there were other pro editors out there using the tool. Great to know I wasn’t an oddity. It has been great, and I still use it, and will migrate to EditReady when I’m ready. A very handy, and very fast tool to have in the toolkit!